Various tools have been used in the computer network and telephone industries for wire termination, and for cutting and seating individual network/telephone wires in network/telephone wire receptacles. Impact tools are often used with relatively stable and robust wire receptacles. Impact tools have been employed such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,195,230, 4,696,090, 4,567,639, and 4,241,496 and the patents cited therein. In other situations, tools are employed that hold and support the wire receptacle for wire termination and cutting.
RJ-45 type terminal jacks present an example in which the wire termination receptacle is not affixed to a relatively stable structure. This is also the case with such jacks that are connected as modules into a patch panel frame to form a patch panel. A pliers-type of compression tool (such as an Anixter Part No. 139587) is known that requires careful independent handling of a number of parts, in order to properly align the blades of the insertion and cutting head with the wire seating slots of the jack. The tines of a respective wire-insertion blade that are retained in a wire-insertion block must be carefully aligned and inserted into a wire-seating slot in the terminal receptacle, so that when the pliers type compression tool is operated, they may engage a wire that has been placed in the slot, push the wire down and firmly seat the wire against the slot's bottom surface. As the wire becomes seated in the slot, as a result of the tool's compression movement of the wire-insertion blade into the slot, the blade's knife, which is retained in a knife support block, will have travelled alongside a side edge portion of the terminal receptacle and will cut the wire with a guillotine type of shearing/cutting action at that point. This can require an experienced craftsperson to make sure that the cutting head is precisely aligned with the wire installation receptacle.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,832,603 discloses a termination tool to seat and cut one or more wires. The tool includes a pistol handle with a trigger which brings an actuator into engagement with a wire insertion and cutting at carrier. The cutting head carrier has a insertion and cutting head with a plurality of wire insertion and cutting blades. The cutting head is linearly translatable along an axis of the handle towards a nose end of the tool. The disclosed embodiments provide a transmission of motion from the trigger to the linearly guided cutting head which is somewhat complicated and is not always smooth in operation. Further, the positioning of the RJ wire receptacle at the nose end requires some skill.